4 proven methods to validate your product idea

20 January, 2017

How to validate your product idea

A significant stage to take when building a product nobody wants is to deeply validate your product idea. It seems like a clear thing to do, however many times this stage is not taken, wasting time and money that gets pushed aside.

Why people avoid this?

Many people don’t know how to make a good validation.

People are anxious to actually begin creating something and rush through the research phase.

Entrepreneurs think they already know what their audience wants and will pay for.

Here a 4 keys to validate your product idea, and help you make sure that the product will be a hit!

1. Talk about your Idea with many people

A big mistake people make in the creating stage of a product of any kind, is keeping the idea to themselves. You must share your idea with others. A big reason why entrepreneurs don’t do this is because of the possibility of other people taking their idea.
Share it with family, friends, people in your interest’s groups, people in your community and even complete strangers! Join entrepreneurs, and small business owners’ groups
The more you share your idea, the better that idea becomes!

2. Create a Prototype of Your Product First

As an alternative of going all out with the full creation of a product, you can create a prototype of that product and see what the response is like. This works mostly well with technology.
It may not be 100% fully functional, but you’ll get authentic feedback on a mini product people can sort of use, instead of just the idea of that thing.
The response isn’t always pretty, but it’s necessary for you to figure out whether or not to keep going with it.

3. Know who your competence is

Some people think competition is bad – especially if someone else has won and built and marketed your product before you.
Entrepreneurs, however, know that competition is a good thing, because someone else has already spent the time and money to validate that idea for you! Besides, you have an advantage coming in later but also knowing what can be done better.
Give people want they want, but better, give them a better version of what they are already getting.

4. Crowdfund

A very widespread way to validate a product idea, is crowdfunding.
Sites like Kickstarter are crowdfunding platforms for entrepreneurs that need to test their inventions. At the same time, they are building a rapport with their potential future customers too.
Run a successful campaign, you’ve got a product with paying customers already! If you fail, then you’ve learned that product may not be the best idea after all.
One caution with these platforms is that if you do run a successful campaign and meet your funding goals, you need to deliver on your perk awards, and it can be a very exhausting part of the process.

Let’s do it…

There’s no a real method that guarantees 100% of the long term success of a product before it’s actually in the market, but using these steps you can definitely growth your odds.